


News

by Quillicous



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, other dwarves in background, some of them are dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillicous/pseuds/Quillicous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gimli comes back from the whole ring fiasco with the news from Moria. Nori is the one to tell Dori.</p>
            </blockquote>





	News

Gimli comes back after the whole Ring fiasco and brings news of Moria. Dori isn’t the first of the company to hear; Gloin is. Dori isn’t the second to hear, either; Dwalin is.

He’s not even the third to hear. Nori gets that privilege from Dwalin and comes in through the window of the kitchen one late night. Dori is making tea. It isn’t uncommon to find Dori in the kitchen at midnight doing this; it’s a way for him to take his mind off of Ori and what might have happened to his little brother, what he might be doing now.

“Have you heard the news?” Nori says, dropping to the floor underneath the window as soft as a cat. Dori purposely put the kitchen windows high-up and made them small and Nori still gets in without him noticing.

“What news?” Dori grumbles as he bustles over to the kettle.

“Gimli’s news.”

“What, that he’s decided to start cavorting with an elf?” He has heard other rumors darker than the scandal of Gimli and Legolas’s friendship, but he doesn’t voice them. They can’t be true, they are merely rumor, something extrapolated from the dark times brought on by that dratted ring of Bilbo Baggins’s.

“The Fellowship passed through Moria. They found Ori, brother,” Nori whispers, and Dori freezes.

Alive, he thinks frantically, they found Ori alive, _right_?

Having no answer, Nori continues. “They’re all dead, Dori—Balin, Oin—and—little Ori.”

Dori whirls. “Stop,” he says, voice low and deadly. “This is nothing more than another of your lies. It’s not true.” _It’s not true._

_Why hasn’t there been word from Moria all this time?_

There are unshed tears in Nori’s eyes, and that is all that stops Dori from bodily flinging him out of the house. “I wish it weren’t for once,” Nori mutters, glancing at the window like he’s looking for an escape route. “I wish I were lying.”

Dori turns back to his whistling kettle and pours himself a cup of tea, focusing on the action, trying to calm his breathing and heart. “Get out,” he says hoarsely. He does not want to hear any more from Nori, and he does not want to hurt his brother for being the bearer of bad news (his only brother, some voice whispers).

Nori complies silently, going out the same way he came, with a leap that should not be possible for one of dwarf-kind. Dori stands there in the kitchen with his tea for a very long time.

\----

Later comes the guilt.

He sent his little brother off with Balin. _He_ did that. He let Ori go off to Moria, knowing the place was overrun by orcs and worse, and Ori was dead.

 _I could have protected him if I was there_.

“You couldn’t have,” Nori says, sitting next to him on a tall stool, and Dori realizes he spoke aloud.

He harrumphs and goes back to searching through his yarn for a skein for his next project, whatever that will be. His fingers close on lavender— _Ori’s colour_ —and he shakes his head furiously. “You don’t know that.”

“You would have died with Ori, and where would that have left me?”

“A free dwarf at last, with no ties at all, and wouldn’t that make you happy,” Dori said a little bitterly. It was unfair and he knew it.

“You’re not the only one mourning Ori,” Nori snaps. “You’re not even the only one mourning the loss of a brother. There was nothing anyone could have done, with a hundred thousand orcs hiding in the depths of Moria and Durin’s Bane not far behind. I suggest you remember that.”

Dori doesn’t know what to say, but there is no Nori to say it to; the thief has gone without another word. Dori sighs heavily, passes a hand over his face, and wonders where the tears are.

He settles on the dark lavender at last and knits a scarf.

Ori would have been very pleased with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I'm not happy with the ending, but I've no idea where I'd go from here, so there you go.


End file.
